PSY1011: Psychology 1A

Like many past students, I was disappointed with this unit. Whilst the subject area was relatively interesting (although very, very similar to VCE Psychology), the unit and assessments were poorly organised. Firstly, far too much content (most of which was unrelated) was squeezed into 12 weeks – making it virtually impossible to learn everything you needed to know. Secondly, the assessments in the unit were a mess. The assignment instructions were very ambiguous, unclear, and at times contradicting with what tutors were saying, as well as the assessment criteria. There were also cases of different tutors telling students different things regarding what was actually required in the assessments. In turn, this resulted in assignments being marked very strangely and inconsistently. Lastly, many students (including myself) found the consultations very pointless and unhelpful; and found that they were better off learning primarily from the textbook, rather than the lectorials.

- 15%. This is a 1000 word analysis of the similarities, differences, strengths and weaknesses of at least 7 articles relating to one of the four topics provided in the oral report and written summary. Again, students have to research the articles themselves, and ensure that they are relevant to the topic area.

- 50%. The exam is closed book and students are given 2 hours writing time and 10 minutes reading time. The exam features around 100 multiple choice questions, and assesses your knowledge of the reading and lectorial material. The exam is also a hurdle, so you need 45%+ on the exam to pass. I personally found the exam questions a bit easier than the weekly quiz questions, however the exam did feature a couple of curveball questions that I assume most students simply guessed.

There were a number of different lecturers who taught different topics throughout the semester. All in all, the lecturers were okay – some were good, some were bad.

- 20%. This assessment is divided into two parts. For the first part, students research and summarise the key aspects three articles, which relate to one of four topic areas. For the second part, students create an audio and visual presentation (e.g. using PowerPoint and the recording feature) where they describe the three articles in more detail, and discuss why they are relevant to their chosen topic area.

No, however students are given access to a revision quiz on Moodle (although I personally didn’t find it very useful or similar to the actual exam).

2.5 out of 5

Yes, with screen capture.

The prescribed textbook is a custom textbook for this unit (and PSY1022), and it is pretty important. Since the weekly quizzes are based on the textbook (as well as the exam, to quite a large extent), it is pretty essential if you’re aiming for a 75+ score (in my opinion); however, you should still definitely be able to pass without it.

- 15%. There is a multiple choice quiz each week, which assesses your understanding of the readings. These quizzes are completed using ‘LockDown Browser’, which prevents you from accessing anything other than the quiz during the 20 minutes you have to complete it. The quizzes are therefore supposed to be completed closed-book, however obviously, there would be students who complete these quizzes open-book by using their textbook, phone, etc. Whilst you complete 10 online quizzes, only the scores from your best 5 are used.

1x 2 hour lectorial (basically a lecture) each week.
1x 2 hour consultation (basically a tutorial) each week (non-compulsory).

2017, Semester 1.

5 x lecture topic quizzes: 15%
Oral paper report (video) and written summary (1000words): 20%, apparently doing the video was a first for this year and caused confusion and frustration for some of us. The style of the summary depended on your facilitator/tutor so some did the 1000 word summary in a table, some in essay format and some in numbered bullet style. For a first assignment, this was particularly difficult because we only had a few lectures' knowledge of what was going on so to go find three research papers and summarise them was quite a task, especially since the papers didn't really make sense until after we've covered the "Learning" topic (we had a choice between choosing between media violence, punishment and aversion therapy). Coupled with the oral paper, this assignment was just too much stress for a first assignment. First of all, to upload the video you have to enable your Google account with Monash but that part wasn't in the guide so some people, including me just used whichever Google account they had to upload the video on Youtube (some didn't know that the video had to be unlisted so you can go watch some for tips). Going back to the written summary, the criticism part was a big part of the assignment but I really had no idea how we were meant to criticise when we hadn't even learn any tools to do that.

Critical evaluation exercise (1000words): 15%

Examination (2 hours): 50%, not a hurdle requirement although the unit guide says it is.

I came into this unit knowing it was disorganised and that the assignments were a mess to understand and these sentiments couldn't be more true. This unit suffers from not being structured properly mainly because it was hard to understand what was going on half the time and the advice you get from the Moodle forum differs greatly to other people's advice or your tutor - basically, there's no universal standard and there's a lot of variation. You really do need to go to your consultation class because your tutor tells you what you need to do and if they want an essay instead of a tabled answer, you have to write an essay EVEN IF the assignment does say that you can choose which format you do your assignment in.

The criteria sheet also didn't match with what my tutor said he was grading and it appeared to be just a copy from another assignment (and like with anything in this unit caused confusion), but if you form a facebook/study group, you'll be more than okay since people share their tips and things like that on there.

The other downfall of this unit was that some lecturers were uninteresting or mumbled their words a lot or had trouble forming sentences due to their native language not being English that it was hard to keep up or try to understand what was being said, because by the time the lecturer had said the next word, you'd already forgotten what was said before (sorry, this is a mouthful haha). Also, some lecturers seemed to talk a lot about their Phd and while it was interesting to listen to, it felt like advertising.

Other than that, I liked this unit although it was reallly reallllllly hard to get well or a HD compared to other subjects (I got told that the average was around 5 or 6 for the first assignment that was out of 10 and that only 16 people got HDs - also beware, there are a lot of people that have dropped out of this course because of how difficult/unclear it was BUT if you do the work and ask for feedback, you will be okay, probably not HD okay but okay enough ) but the weekly quizzes were easy enough to get well, especially the later quizzes since they just regurgitate the MyPsychLab questions.

Varies, but you get a lecturer for two weeks because each topic goes for two weeks except for the introduction lecture and the historical timeline of psychology one. Some of the lecturers I remember: Matt Mundy(developmental psych, I think), Sean Cain (sensation & perception), Kim Cornish (bio psych) Wei Wei (Personality), Russell Conduit, also the coordinator (first two lectures)

No, they don't provide you one but you do have MyPsychLab (an accompanying source with the book that generates questions for you) and they do recycle questions from that. The exam I did had about 50% of the questions from MyPsychLab, some from the weekly quizzes and some were too specific like in the learning or sensation & perception topic, that probably came from the extra info the lecturers talked about. They also had two questions that were the exact same in the exam that I did so I guess that was an easy mark to get provided you got the previous question right. (The exam wasn't too hard and it was pretty much matching definition to an answer or naming a function, no funky diagrams that you had to pick the name from and almost no application type questions where you get given a scenario and see the results and say what those results mean)

3.5 out of 5

Yes

I got the Custom Lillinfield textbook and all the readings are there plus each chapter has revision questions but it's mostly memorising definitions. I did get the one by Finlay but I didn't really think it helped me with writing the summary or the lit review but it could be useful for next semester so I'm keeping it.

2 hour lectorials (lecture and a tutorial, but mostly a long lecture that sometimes have hands on activities, eg. measuring each other's personalities on the Likert scale by asking them a couple of questions or working through a handout with application questions about the topic with the people around you. Normally these tutorial type activities happen during the last hour or half an hour but normally by then, people would just walk out.

2014, Semester 1

TBA 74 D

Did not attend lectures (8am, good joke) or listen to majority of recordings, so, not sure.

Nope, but there's this thing called 'MyPsychLab' which generates multi-choice questions for you. I can't attest to how good it is 'cause I never used it (there's a code in the back of the textbook to redeem and I just borrowed the textbook).

2/5

Yes, I think with screen capture.

If you want to do well in the exam, you should probably get the compulsory Lillienfield textbook. If you took Psych Units 1-4 in VCE, you could probably skate through pretty nicely on lecture slides or something like that. If you have never done any Psych before... I probably wouldn't recommend winging it.
There is also a text that is referred to as "Findlay" which is quite useful for the written assignments they want you to hand n. Has how to reference, what font to use, what size to use, how to structure and whatever. If you wanted very high marks, get it. If you just want solid marks, you could probably navigate with your common sense and any sample-assignments provided by the lecturer and still get pretty good marks. In sum: If you want brilliant marks, get both Lillienfield and Findlay. If you don't give a fuck and you've taken VCE Psych, you could probably get away with not having either. If you don't give a fuck and you haven't taken VCE Psych, you'll probs fail.Edit: If you're going to minor in Psych, get Findlay, because it's pretty cheap and I've got a friend in second year who's still using it, so it'll pay for itself. I also think the Lillienfield textbook might be used in second semester, but I'll come back and let you know.

1 x 2 hour lecture, 1 x 1 hour "lab" per week.

2013, Semester 1.

TBA 88